Tokyo Gas invests in floating wind farm off Portugal

Japan’s natural gas provider Tokyo Gas has made an investment in the WindFloat Atlantic operational floating offshore wind farm in Portugal.

The wind farm is operated by Windplus, a majority-owned subsidiary of Ocean Winds. This investment is a new collaboration between Tokyo Gas and Ocean Winds, who are already co-shareholders of Principle Power, a floating foundations technology company. This also represents Tokyo Gas’s first direct investment in an overseas floating offshore wind power project.

WindFloat Atlantic is the world’s first semi-submersible floating offshore wind farm which consists of three 8.4 MW wind turbines. The project is located 20 km off the coast of Viana do Castelo, Northern Portugal, in the Atlantic Ocean and it started operations in July of 2020.

It uses the WindFloat floating foundation system developed by Principle Power which can operate under severe weather conditions, including maximum wave heights of 20 meters and maximum wind gusts of 38.8 m/s.

“Ocean Winds is not only a pioneer in floating offshore wind power but also a global player in offshore wind energy. Moving forward, we will leverage the knowledge gained from this collaboration to work towards the large-scale commercialization of floating offshore wind power in Japan,” said Kimoto Kentaro, Tokyo Gas VP, CTO, and chief executive of Green Transformation Company.

Near the end of last year, Tokyo Gas invested in the offshore wind fund established by UK-based Octopus Energy. The fund specialises in offshore wind investments and comprises a diversified portfolio of investments in offshore wind and development platforms. The Japanese firm will make an investment commitment of $238.5m as a cornerstone investor and will increase the fund size to a total of $3.8bn by 2030.